Reconciling drum kits

In the song file Doggiebox stores a reference to the drum kit in which it should look for the instruments it needs. However, details of the drums themselves, such as their sounds and icons, are not saved in the song file — only the names of the drums, and the name of the drum kit they came from. This is by design, since it allows a huge drum kit to be shared amongst infinitely many songs without wasting extra space, while also centralizing all drum kit improvements to one place.

As a result, things can go awry if a song becomes separated from its original drum kit, or the drum kit is drastically altered. Similarly, some action needs to be taken when copying and pasting bars between songs that use different kits, or when deliberately choosing a new drum kit for a song. Fortunately, Doggiebox provides an intuitive and flexible process for sorting things out in any of these situations.

When such a scenario arises — that is, when loading song data scored for a drum kit that is not available, such that a different drum kit must be swapped in — Doggiebox invokes a process called "drum kit reconciliation". This gives you the opportunity to substitute drums from the new (current) kit for those that don't match in the original kit.

The drum kit reconciliation sheet

The dialog displays three columns of data between two tables. The left-most column, labeled "Original Drum", lists all of the distinct drum variants scored for the original material. The right-most table, titled with the name of the song's current drum kit and similar to the drum kit list in the main document window, lists all of the available drums. The middle column, "Map To", indicates which drums from the current kit have been chosen to take the places of the unavailable original drums.

For instrument names that match between the original and current drum kits, the association is obvious and Doggiebox matches them automatically. Those that don't will be indicated in red with "None Specified", and you must choose the substitutes. To do so, click an entry in the left-hand table, then click the desired substitute drum in the right-hand table.

To try this first-hand, open the provided Demo Song. Choose Change Drum Kit... from the Song menu and pick the provided "Voice Drums.dbkit". Dismiss the Song Options dialog, and you will be greeted with the reconcile dialog. Note how the song's original drum kit (Ben's Premier Kit) contains a wider variety of instruments than Voice Drums, some with different names, and so on.

After clicking Continue, Doggiebox will perform the necessary substitutions on the song material and complete the original operation (changing drum kits, pasting bars, etc.). Clicking Cancel will abort the operation.

Reconciling a kit that uses linked sounds

If the song employs a drum kit which uses linked (vs. embedded) sound files, and if those files cannot automatically be found, you may be prompted to locate them. In such a case, an alert will appear with instructions on how to obtain the required files if you don't already have them.

A drum kit needs help finding its sound files

Exporting the song

Once you have a song well on the way, at some point you will probably wish to incorporate the drums into another recording you've made outside of Doggiebox. To do this you must either mix down the sound into a standard waveform format that you can then use with other programs, or export the rhythmic information to a MIDI file for use with a sequencing application or device. Both are possible with Doggiebox.

Similar to playback, the export operation will include all currently-selected bars in the pattern editor (or, if none are selected, all of the visible bars). In order to export the whole song, first ensure that the entire playlist is selected.

Exporting as raw audio

To mix down your song to stereo waveform data (e.g. for use with a digital multi-track application like ProTools or AudioDesk), choose Export Audio... from the File menu. A dialog sheet will appear with a few options allowing you to choose the output file format and encoding.

The export audio dialog

In addition to the file format, you are able to specify the encoding (bit depth, compression). The available encoding options are dependent upon what file format you have selected (though it is not currently possible to choose a different sample rate or channel configuration).

If you are exporting the audio for use in another mixing/recording application, AIFF or WAV at 16 or 24 bits is typically a good choice.

If you are creating rhythms for use as loops, you should turn off the allow sounds to decay completely option in Preferences to ensure that the duration of the audio is the exact desired length.

When you dismiss the dialog by clicking Export, a progress bar will appear briefly as Doggiebox writes the output file. Keep in mind that exporting the raw audio does not affect your main .dbsong file, which you will need to keep around in order to make future changes to your drum tracks.

If when playing back your exported tracks you find audible distortion or clipping, particularly in loud regions or where several drums are played at once, you should reduce the Master Volume in the song editor window and try exporting again. It's likely that the additive nature of the mix is peaking above 0 dB and clipping off.

Exporting to a MIDI file

To export to a standard MIDI file, choose Export MIDI File... from the File menu. A save dialog. Provided that the song's drum kit has valid MIDI note assignments for all instruments in use, the MIDI file will be created in a matter of moments. (If this is not the case, a warning message will be shown following the save.)